Webcams Leads To Lower Quality Social Communication

from the don't-look-now... dept

Apparently, people are willing to communicate a lot more info when it's just text than when you can see the other person. Thus, using webcams for discussions may lead to a lower quality in social communication. I wonder how this applies to the phone as well. The study claims that people who are just typing to each other concentrate more on their own feelings, but if they can see their conversation partner, they're more likely to concentrate on them. Is a phone conversation the happy middle-ground then? Besides, who says that revealing all sorts of extra information leads to "higher quality" social interaction? The info that people are willing to put in an email to a complete stranger can be scary sometimes (such as the emails I've been getting about GeekGirlServices.com).